High School Kids made a version of Turing’s $750 drug Daraprim at the cost of just $2

Daraprim is one of the drugs on the World Health Organization list of Essential Medicines for treating toxoplasmosis. Toxoplasmosis is parasitic infection particularly dangerous to people with compromised immune systems (such as HIV patients), pregnant women, and the elderly.

Turing Pharmaceuticals, a US-based biotech company, has the U.S. rights to produce and distribute this life-saving drug solely. Prior to Turing’s acquisition of the said rights, the drug sold for $13.50. After the acquisition, Turing boosted its price by over 5,000% to $750. Driving it out of the reach of not just many Americans but millions of sick people around the world.

Martin Shkreli, a hedge-fund manager, turned pharmaceutical company CEO, played a leading role in Turing’s acquisition of the U.S. rights to producing Daraprim. And its subsequent price hike from $13.50 to $750; attracting widespread condemnation, with some media sources calling him “the most hated man in America.”

If a discovery made in November by high-school aged students from Sydney, Australia is anything to by, Shkreli and Turing days of making a big fortune out of people’s sickness is numbered.